So, Aaron was looking for a way he could expand his free location scouting business. Before that, he was a bartender, but you can imagine what happened when the pandemic came around.
"This idea originated while I was seeking a creative way to expand my freelance location scouting business," explained Aaron. "I wanted to increase my workload and income because my primary source of income—bartending—has been crippled by the COVID-19 pandemic. As a location scout, I have been consistently tasked with making inquiries to film at a wide range of places, many of which are homes. As you can imagine, the ask is usually luxury."
For those unaware, a location scout is a person who looks for places that fit certain criteria for filming a movie or doing some commercial photography, among many other things. It’s a key part of pre-production of films, ads, and many other projects.
This includes going door-to-door to each house that fits a given project’s criteria. And this idea soon evolved into making videos of said houses where the owners themselves pretty much explain how their homes came to be by answering one simple question—what do they do for a living?
There are a handful of houses that Aaron has featured on his TikTok channel. The idea behind these videos is that he wants to show people that you don’t have to be a lawyer or a doctor to own a nice place. And the videos show it.
Though there were a number of lawyers in the mix, many of them were business owners, real estate agents, as well as artists, physiotherapists, and sportspeople.
"I've been doing this for five years, have built up strong confidence and an appropriate demeanor for that. In my experience, the homeowners are usually intrigued, excited and genuinely nice. I also always receive consent from the homeowners and I never trespass. If ever I receive a negative response, I leave," elaborated Aaron.
Some people are jokers, though, like this one lady who, when asked what she did for a living, responded “Oh, I’m a part of the Yakuza” while another explained she’s a “Dream Worker,” whatever that means.
"A middle-aged, single woman in a more-than-significant house once told me, 'I am comfortably unemployed.' I thought that was quite comical. One of the most talked about answers was a woman in one of my videos answered 'I'm a dreamworker', I hadn't heard of that career prior, and I'm assuming many of my viewers had not either," explained Aaron.
Even though some consider these videos a tad bit cringy (because of the fact that, in essence, these are videos of a random dude strolling by the homes of complete strangers with his phone camera on and asking “what do you do for a living?”), Aaron reassures viewers that these videos are consensual and that if he’s asked not to film, he respects people's requests and privacy.
Regardless, his channel has just 9 videos, each featuring between 2 and 3 homes and their owners, and it already has over 50 million views collectively. His 3rd video alone has gained over 32 million views. Besides that, the channel has over 11 million likes and almost 750,000 followers.
Lastly, we've asked Aaron how did he react to the fact that all of this went crazy viral. He had this to say:
"I had an idea that they would do well, studying the social media trends. Though I did not expect them to go that crazy viral so quickly, my most popular video now has over 30 million views. If anything, the popularity of the videos drives me to create more content, it also confirms that other people have also looked at luxury homes and are asking the same question that I am. I'm thoroughly enjoying creating the content and interacting with the people that enjoy watching it."
You can check out his TikTok here, but before you go, why not let us know what you thought about this in the comment section below!
